Equestrian Barter
by Frees
Summary: I need to get away and prepare for the next strike. I should hide in shadows and observe. Even in death I shall have my revenge. They betrayed me and they shall die for it. Russian criminal in Equestria fic. Sorry for any grammar mistakes, I'm Russian myself:3


**Chapter 1 **

**Unlikely circumstances.**

I can't sleep tonight. I can't bring myself to do it. I can't calm down. I know they are looking for me and they want me dead. All I can do is hide. Hide where I hid before. In this god-forsaken motel just outside the city. At least the personnel here still remember me, so they won't snitch. I was safe for the night and had nothing to do, so I might as well get drunk. Yeah, that sounds good.

I sit on my squeaky bed with specks of questionable origin all over it's sheets. Once white and clean walls of the room now lacking wallpaper and covered in stains as well. The room is filled with smoke and some cigarette butts lying here and there.

_Need to calm down._

I reach my hand under the mattress and pull out a bottle of brandy, open it and take a sip. A familiar burning sensation rolling down my throat. I sigh and pour myself a glass of brownish liquid.

_Well, the night is going to be boring..._

Now I've started to tell you my story without introduction. My name is Maksim Barabanov, Max for short. I just got out of prison and am currently in the town of Pskov. I was born here in 1978. I love it with all of the trash in the streets and thuggish people pacing around. I don't even know why, but I do.

Well now to tell you about my appearance. My hair is black and always cut short, almost shaved. I always wore goatee since I could grow it. My eyes are dark green and I think it goes to my ancestry, because eyes of all family members by father's line are the same color. I have rather muscular body, and with my height of 6'4 it works well for intimidation. I have a scar going from my cheek through my lips because of the mentioned intimidation, only a failed attempt.

Now what led me to this kind of life? Well, to cover that up I need to start from my childhood.

My life back then was tough. My parents were both drunkards and spent all of the family money on booze. Sometimes there wasn't even enough money for food, not to mention rent fee.

So I desperately needed money and started to look for work. I was 13 back then and there was nothing official I could do, but I got a part-time job at the local market. From that time I wasn't going to school no more. It wasn't about education from that time, it was about survival.

The morning after I received my first payment I remembered for the rest of my life. I woke up and found that all of my money is missing. I checked my parents' room and found them sleeping with empty bottles littering the floor. They were dead for me from that moment. How low should you fall to steal money your own son? Apparently they reached that point. I left my home that day.

My best and only friend talked his mother to let me live with them. I continued to work and lived in the same room with him. That was a good time of my life so to say. Until his mother had enough of it and after 4 years decided to throw me out. My 'friend' hadn't even tried to argue. I haven't seen him from that day.

Left without a place to stay I needed even more money to at least rent a room somewhere. As I continued to work on market I gained some connection as these places here aren't exactly legal. A constant flow of drugs, guns and other stuff was going through them.

And then I got acquainted with a man that got me into the mentioned mess. He offered me a simple job. Beat, mug someone or just do some security errands. Not legal, sure, but I wasn't good either. I was foolish and wanted too much. So I accepted the offer. What else could I do?

Months passed and I gained some money as well as reputation. I had enough to pay rent for a motel room, to buy food and decent clothes. This motel was a checkpoint for the drug flow and the staff there was told to hide me if needed in return of providing security for the time of sorting and packing of illegal substances. I guess I was lucky that militia hadn't found out about the whole ordeal. I also started receiving requests for assassinations. At first I was hesitant, but the amounts of money promised to me clouded my mind. That's how I became a hitman. And that's how I got that nasty scar on my face. I was told to kill one man with a knife to blame local thugs later. I saw his dossier, he was a dangerous man. He once was a criminal, and now was working for government. No wonder they wanted him silenced. It all started as always, but turned out that he was prepared. He had a gun. In an adrenaline rush I kicked it out from his grip before he had a chance to shoot. He pulled out his knife and swung it at my face. I tried to avoid it, but failed with results already known to you. Well, a broken arm reasoned him not to resist. A stab in the ribcage, piercing his heart and the job was done.

After that kill I got a pretty big amount of cash. I spent it on a new gun. My old Makarov pistol was nothing compared to this revolver. It's barrel held two times less bullets than any pistol, true, but it was a sight to see. It was Smith & Wesson 500 double action revolver smuggled to the black market. When you point that thing at someone, sometimes you don't even have to shoot. They can have a heart attack right there. And the firepower, from what I've seen, can be compared to AK-47. You can shoot through a brick wall with that thing. The hit from with a bullet after that won't be lethal, but it will scare the shit out of a person behind the wall. I named my gun Vika. It is twice as embarrassing to be scared by a girl.

And now for the event that got me into jail.

I was now 28 years old cold-blooded killer, but I never was ashamed of what I was doing. It was for survival.

There was an offer for me to join the group and rob local bank. They promised me that everything was planned and militia has been paid to look the other way, so after some hesitation I accepted. We were given AK-74's for this job. We had to return them back though. I left my gun in a secret stash under by bed.

Everything began just fine, but by Murphy's Law if anything can go wrong, it will. When our group was exiting the bank through the back door we heard militia sirens getting closer. That's when the panic started. We hastily reached the car that we left as an escape plan. But when we loaded the cash into it one of them knocked me out from behind. I don't remember how he did it, that moment of my memory is in blur. I was laying unconscious, still with mask on my face when OMON arrived.

I awoke in prison. I slept through the court. They didn't have to prove that I was one of the criminals. It was clear to everyone.

I spent next 6 years of my life in prison. Life behind the bars is tough. Reputation is everything and you can't trust anybody. That was the time when I got my tattoos. I met one old man who was sentenced for a lifetime imprisonment which was represented with a tattoo on his forehead- barbed wire. He offered to make me one if I get him some cigarettes. Those are rare in prison, but I was able to get them. And so I got my tattoos: Six pointed star on the back of my neck, each point representing one year in prison, and a cross on my back with a phrase under it, saying "_Pomnim, Lubim, Skorbim._"

A phrase, often written on gravestones, represented that I died long ago, when I first entered this criminal business.

After the longest six years of my life I was free again. If only things were that easy. Immediately after I was released there was a price on my head. I felt like I am that man who left me a reminding scar. I was being hunted down.

Now look where it led me. Sitting in the same motel, trying to get myself to drunken stupor. It seems I have fallen too low to live. But I have no intention to die. Not yet. I still need to get my revenge. To kill these fuckers that set me up.

_But I can't do that now._

I sigh as I pour myself another glass. I stand up from my bed and walk to the window, eyeing the surroundings. Pine forest was just behind this motel, like the rest of this country, and that's what I love about it. The air is rather clean no matter what, and it is so peaceful there, in the woods. Before prison I liked going there and "meditating" as I called it. I just sat on the forest floor and listened to the sounds of nature. It provides so much more calm and reassurance than any professional psychologist could ever give you.

I open the window and feel the wind gently brushing against my skin. Everything was so calm, so quiet, so peaceful.

I stood there for several minutes observing the green mass in front of me and then turned around and got to my bed again. Poured another glass of alcohol already feeling slight relaxation as previous two glasses started seeping into my blood flow. And so went the rest of the night until I finally blacked out.

It was a dreamless night.

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I woke up. The sun was shining through my closed eye lids.

The next thing that I recognized was a throbbing pain. I had a huge hangover.

_I should have bought something with more quality than yesterday's booze._

I tried to face away from the sun and understood that I'm not on my bed anymore; the surface around me was hard.

It seems like I've fallen from the bed during the night. Damn, now I should at least get back there.

I open my eyes and instantly regret that I did it. I was lying on a rock surface. I shifted my gaze around me and panic kicked in.

I AM ON A GODDAMN MOUNTAIN! What the hell? There are no mountains in Russia that were close to me!

I bolted upright ignoring the headache.

"Cho za huynya?"[What the fuck?] I yelled and was answered only by an echo of my words.

I stood there dumbfounded for good fifteen minutes.

_That just doesn't make any sense at all!_

_I just… I don't know what to think about this. What the hell with this teleportation? WHAT THE FUCK!_

_It's not possible to transport me over such a distance without me noticing._

_Oh, wait, I think I know what happened. I'm hallucinating! Just great. I drank myself to hallucinations._

I looked around and saw my half empty bottle. I picked it up, and after a moment of hesitation opened it.

_Well, it can't get worse, right? At least I'll get rid of that headache. Too bad that it is not a quality alcohol._

I took a swig from the bottle. And then another... And another...

Soon the bottle was laying shattered on the solid rock and I was standing with a stupid grin on my scarred face.

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**MEANWHILE IN PSKOV**

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Two masked men were staring at the smoke, dissipating from the bed on which their eliminated target was lying moments ago.

One of them turned his head to his comrade.

"Shto tol'ko shto proizashlo?"[What the hell just happened?] He asked dumbfounded.

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**BACK IN EQUESTRIA**

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I ran his hand through my hair and with a heavy sigh started figuring out what to do, while staring at the ground below his feet with an unfocused gaze.

The gears in my head seemed to start their work as I tried to get to the higher point of the mountain.

Fifteen minutes later I was standing on the cliff, scanning the area while some birds in the distance flew around a small tree which somehow managed to grow on the rock.

I turned my head and instantly something clicked in my mind.

_There were pillars. They look like... the ones on my town's church._

My expression transformed into a smirk as I stumbled my way to the city. I can't call my way there easy at all. With balancing problems, sharp rocks and the uphill struggle it was quite challenging in my condition but I managed.

The wind made whistling sounds through the holes in the cliff as I stepped on it's edge and looked down.

There was a city below, I couldn't define the details but one thing was clear to me.

_There is no way I can climb down here_

"Nu bljat' priehali! Teper' mnje pridyotsa iska~"[Fucking awesome! Now I need to lo~] his rant was cut short when he failed to keep his balance and fell off the cliff.

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It was a usual day in Canterlot. Ponies where walking on their own business in the market district, vendors sold their goods under the midday sun. Everything was going as usual, but it soon changed when Silver Trade who was sitting on a bench and looking at the sky noticed something strange. She was rather old mare, had gray coat and bluish mane, her cutie mark was a necklace surrounded by three bits.

_There was something falling from the cliff_

She turned her head and asked the first bypassing pony:

"Am I seeing things or there's something falling?" She asked while pointing her hoof upwards.

The stallion she asked shifted his gaze upward and his his pupils widened.

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While I was descending on the city below, one thought throbbed in my mind. It throbbed to the point of a headache.

_What a stupid way to die._

With that thought in mind I voiced his opinion about the life itself in a very creative way, accompanied the phrases so foul that they could put a hardened sailor to shame. Oh, how I was surprised when instead of an impact with solid ground I fell headfirst into the water.

I tried to swim upwards, but the momentum stopped catching on me only when I reached the bottom.

I pushed myself to the surface and gasped for air, then I looked at the water mass he fell into.

_It was a fountain._

I laughed my ass off while I dragged myself out of it.

The crowd of silhouettes with confused expressions on their faces surrounded me.

_Wait, how did I manage to tell what their expressions were? Eh, doesn't matter, I have more important things to do at hand._

"Harosh glazet'. Pokajite gde sdes' bar i razoydyomsya mirno."[Stop your staring. Show me where the closest bar is and we'll continue our own business]

A wave of whispers rolled through the crowd but they all fell silent when one particular old gray mare asked:

"Did you say something?"

**WELL WHAT DO YOU THINK?**

**R&R PLEASE**


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